As mentioned in the chapter-opening vignette, Ben Carpenter had a long road to success in which many unforeseen events required action and coping skills to deal with the strain from change. But Ben learned a lot from these events, and with this experience he has become more effective and resilient in his work. For example, one of the bullet points Ben laid out for Avery was, “Never say anything negative about your coworkers,” a piece of advice based on a time when Ben almost derailed his career after speaking negatively about one of his coworkers.

No doubt, you have experienced turning-point events in your work and interactions with organizations that have affected the way you perceive work and the way you do things in organizations. Think now about a time when you (or someone close to you) had a major change event at work. Answer the following questions about that event:

• What was the major change event? 

• What caused the major change event? 

• What were the outcomes of the major change event? 

• How many people were affected? Who was affected?

• Did the change event lead to stress for the people affected? Was it “good” or “bad” stress? 

• From this event, can you think of one piece of advice for employees in similar situations in the future? Write that advice down.

Questions 

1. Did any of the group members disagree on the piece of advice for employees in different situations? If they did, what were the competing advice points? Can you think of alternative pieces of advice that might contradict what you or your group members thought of for any of the group’s descriptions? (For example, if one piece of advice is “birds of a feather flock together,” a competing piece of advice is “opposites attract.”) 

2. For your situation, is there anything you (or your family member) should have done differently? Explain. 

3. In what ways do you think organizations can train their employees to be more adaptive and resilient? Do you think this is possible? Why or why not?